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“Unbending Women”

Sermon by Peter Terpenning
August 22, 2004
Isaiah 58:6-14, Luke 13:10-17

           Isaiah 58 echoes a common theme in the Old Testament: that God calls us to true righteousness. God does not want only our pious ceremonies and offerings. God expects us to weave together a righteousness that includes action and justice. “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free… to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house…”
            Jesus breaks the yoke that is holding the bent over woman. This nameless woman was bent and crippled for 18 years when she came into Jesus’ presence and was healed. She did not ask to be healed, but she is, on the Sabbath. This causes problems with his critics, who say he has broken the Sabbath law. But Jesus tells them that this woman’s life is just as holy as the rules of the Sabbath. And he calls his critics hypocrites for they will loose and ox or a donkey on the Sabbath so it can have water. How much more would God want Jesus to loose this woman on the Sabbath day?
            Theresa Berger, a theology professor at Duke wrote that women have little difficulty identifying with this woman. In the Christian Century this month she quotes a poem by Miriam Therese Winter about this passage:
            “Surely/ You meant/ when You lifted/ her up/ Long ago/ To Your praise/ Compassionate One,/ not one woman/ only/ but all women/ bent/ by unbending ways.”
            Things have improved for women in some parts of the world. But in many ways women are still bent. Although the world’s population is obviously growing, the number of women is declining. I read that there are already 60-100 million fewer girsl than boys in the world. This is due to selective abortions, selective infanticide or neglect and uneven allocation of education, resources medical care to girls. “The battering of women each year results in more injuries requiring medical attention than auto accidents, muggings and rapes combined”. (The Christian Century, August 10, 2004).
            Other things bend women’s lives, such as the cultural pressures of cosmetic surgery, clothing and dieting. Have you glanced at a Seventeen Magazine lately? It’s amazing the clothing and submissive attitudes that are still taught to women.
            One thing is clear about Jesus. He did not favor men over women, but offered hope and healing equally. This is an incredible witness when you consider the time in which he lived. It made the Taliban look like reformers. Women had zero rights and were considered little better than farm animals. Yet Jesus repeatedly reached out to women, relied on their resources to support him, healed them, taught them, spoke to them.
            It’s interesting, however, that the passage here does not include the words of the woman healed. Those who recorded Jesus’ life and teachings, were, after all, men of that time, and seldom included the voices of women. Of the 300 some prayers recorded in the Old Testament, only 12 are of women’s voices. One can only assume the women prayed as much as men, but our history has largely silenced women. I am very proud of our denomination that first ordained a woman in 1843. But even this granting of a voice to a woman in a church occurred very late in history when you think about it. And sadly, many churches and religions still grant no voice to women.
            When Jesus healed the bent over woman, Luke tells us that she “stood up straight and began praising God”. It is crucial that we witness that Jesus unbent women and allowed them to stand up and speak. We are called to do no less.
            Isaiah continues: “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom by like the noonday….you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water whose waters never fail…” (Isaiah 58)  “ “There is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise”. (Galatians 3:28) So write Paul in his letter to the Galatians. So Jesus also calls this silent woman, “daughter of Abraham”. “And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Amen